Welcome to REID’S READER, a site renewed weekly and devoted to the appreciation and discussion of books old and new by bibliophile, critic and reviewer Nicholas Reid. Each week REID’S READER offers Something New, Something Old and Something Thoughtful to readers and browsers. REID’S READER will sometimes feature guest reviewers and will sometimes offer general book news, but it does not run publishers’ publicity material.
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Monday, August 25, 2014

Something Thoughtful

Nicholas
Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to
literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree
or disagree with him.

BUT WE MUST KEEP UP WITH AMERICA

Why, dear friend, do you take up particular positions on matters of
moment in your own times?

I hope sincerely it is because you have thought long and hard about
them, weighed up the available evidence, considered both the moral and the
material consequences, and perhaps done a little original research, always
being duly sceptical of some sources of information.

Well alright – I don’t “sincerely” hope all this, but I do at least hope
it.

I know I have opinions on matters of moment about which I am no expert.
You cannot research fully everything of importance, and sometimes you have to
rely on the opinions of people who sound most credible. So I have often ignored
my own advice. But if I were to express publicly strong views on matters of
moment (as opposed to sounding off in private conversation), then I would try
to base my views on evidence, rational arguments, due consideration of material
and moral consequences and so forth.

I would NOT base my arguments on the idea that more people seem to be adopting
an idea, so therefore I’d better jump on the bandwagon.

What has brought on this fairly obvious rant?

A week ago [at time of writing], Kim Hill gave generous air-time to an
advocate of the

decriminalisation in New Zealand of the possession and trade in
marijuana.

In fairness to Hill, she did ask her interviewee challenging questions
about some of his views, although she failed to adequately challenge him on
others, so that much of the broadcast became a mere platform for his advocacy.

In fairness to the interviewee, he did have a few cogent arguments about
the consequences of criminalisation, although in other areas he struck me as
hopelessly naïve. Repeatedly, he kept saying that all social ill consequences
of widespread, legal use of marijuana would be neutralised by educational
programmes on kiddies’ TV. To this I say a hearty and ironical “Yeah, right.” At one point, clearly
trying to appeal to middle-of-the-road listeners, he said the police were the “real heroes” of the current situation
because they rarely arrested people for mere use of marijuana. This clashed
with his later assertion that many people were languishing in jail only because
they had used to stuff. When Kim Hill pointed out the discrepancy, he became
defensive and bellicose. Often I sensed the middle-class recreational user of
weed who wasn’t all that concerned for the social damage done to kids in
working-class and economically depressed situations. To point out (as I have
heard many others do) that perfectly legal alcohol already does much damage to
society is, of course, no argument in favour of other drugs. The notion that
decriminalisation of marijuana will lead to a society in which drugs are used
responsibly by all is simply nonsense.

But, as I have said with my usual impeccable fairness, he did make some
reasonable arguments and I am not taking up a partisan position on the issue.
Maybe decriminalisation with be for the good and maybe not. I don’t profess to
know.

What alienated me from the advocate, however, was how often he appealed
to the legislative decisions made in other countries. As if it were his trump
card, he kept saying that New Zealand would “look very stupid” if it didn’t decriminalise marijuana because a
growing number of US states had done so, and we don’t want to be out of step,
do we?

This I regard as a particularly banal non-argument. It’s what I have
previously referred to as the “20 million
Elvis fans can’t be wrong” argument, referring to some advertising guff I
saw when I was a kid. “You have to like
this guy’s music because lots of other people do,” the ad was implicitly
saying. “You have to decriminalise marijuana
because Americans and some Europeans are doing so,” said the advocate
implicitly.

Really?

Again, I am bound to report that Kim Hill challenged him by pointing out
that often we have, as New Zealanders, expressed our pride in NOT doing what
the USA does (being nuclear-free etc.). Again, the advocate became somewhat
defensive at this point.

And again he lost nearly all credibility with me. “You’ll look silly if
you don’t”. “Everybody else is doing it, so you’d better do it.” Etc. Etc.
These are the arguments for a mob mentality. On issues of social concern, it’s
often important to remain in the minority or even stand on your own. That is
called moral courage. The alternative is mindless conformity.